How to Use OCR in Manufacturing

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is a technology that reads text from images or camera feeds and is widely used in modern manufacturing for tasks such as barcode reading, sell-by date verification, and label verification. OCR systems, like the AI-powered DocTR or custom models tailored to specific typefaces, help automate processes such as scanning return slips and verifying product information, thereby integrating smoothly with manufacturing execution systems. While ready-to-use OCR models like DocTR provide quick deployment, they may be slower or less accurate than custom-trained models, which, though more time-consuming to develop, offer higher precision for specific use cases. Training a custom OCR model involves annotating images to build a system that accurately identifies characters, ensuring efficient processing of text data in manufacturing environments.